June 25, 2006

Newsweek has a big article on Kos that starts off looking like a puff piece. He's listening to hummingbirds and finally getting that flat-screen TV. But, make no mistake, it's quite hard on him. He "picked a rough time" to crash the gates of the Democratic Party:

[T]he Democrats lost the week in the war over the war, and Moulitsas — who chats with Senate leadership aides several times a week and has brainstormed with Democratic operatives about the fall campaign —could no longer just criticize from the outside. Indeed, the Democrats' failed Iraq strategy — stand together, talk tough and make plans to leave —lined up exactly with the prescriptions found on Daily Kos.

Moulitsas is also learning another downside of membership in the elite: the bigger the liberal sniper gets, the more incoming fire he faces. The talk of the blogosphere last week was "Kosola"— allegations that Moulitsas wrote favorably about candidates with whom he or his close friend and coauthor Jerome Armstrong had financial relationships. Moulitsas swore the charges were baseless (Armstrong, too, has denied impropriety), but they clearly got under his skin. When The New Republic's Web site published an e-mail from Moulitsas to a group of friendly activists urging them not to talk about Kosola and thus "starve it of oxygen," Moulitsas went berserk in a blog posting, accusing the venerable liberal journal of treason. By the weekend, Moulitsas's allies were sending each other e-mails infected with the paranoia of revolutionaries who've gained power too fast: How should they deal with traitors? How much openness could they handle? Which fellow travelers could they really trust?...

[S]ome Dems fear that Moulitsas's popularity will pull the party so far to the left that it won't be able to win the general election in 2008. "It's a little bit like 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers' with these guys," said an aide to a Democratic presidential candidate who asked not to be identified while the boss was angling for Moulitsas's support. "You like what they're saying when they're coming in, but you don't know what they're going to do once you let them into your house." Newt Gingrich, who wins points even from liberal bloggers for his political acumen, marvels at the Democrats' embrace of the blogosphere: "Candidates out there run a risk of resembling the people they're trying to appeal to," he tells NEWSWEEK. "I think the Republican Party has few allies more effective than the Daily Kos."...

The pressure on Moulitsas — to be consistent, to be pragmatic, to win — will only grow as the fall elections approach. Already, the strain of the spotlight is beginning to show in his growing belligerence and paranoia. When Kosola broke, Moulitsas e-mailed fellow progressive activists, wondering who might be shopping the story. "I've gotten reliable tips that Hillary's operation has been digging around my past (something I confronted them about, btw, and never got a denial), and you know the Lieberman/DLC/TNR camp is digging as well," he wrote, referring to the centrist Democratic Leadership Council and The New Republic.

Kos's writing style -- which has obviously served him well as a blogger up to this point -- sounds angry and crazed to the outsider. It's easy to get him to react with "belligerence and paranoia," and the more successful he is, the more Democrats are motivated to marginalize and disqualify him. Those he's accused of "digging around in my past" have denied that they're doing it, but, really, why wouldn't they be doing it? And why wouldn't part of their strategy be to make him think that they are so they can lure him into displaying more of that "belligerence and paranoia"?

So I assume there is a conspiracy and a strategy to investigate Kos. And it's so easy to do because it can succeed even if it fails to turn anything up, because it will provoke him, and when he reacts, they'll all say he's paranoid, belligerent. Escort that man back outside the gate.

But why is Althouse saying all this? Is she trying to stoke his paranoia and lead him into the very pitfall she's identified? Is she nonpartisan and just calling them as she sees them? Or is she just saying that because she knows that's the kind of assertion that Kos folk are least likely to believe? And is that one more reason to suspect there's a big plot? Look at that line she boldfaced up there. There's a Republican plot and a Democratic plot all converging on poor Mr. Moulitsas.

66 comments:

All day long I think of things but nothing seems to satisfyThink I'll lose my mind if I don't find something to pacify

I am one of thoseMelodramatic foolsNeurotic to the boneNo doubt about it

I got some so-called friendsThey'll smile right to my faceBut, when my back Is turnedThey'd like to stick it to meYes they wouldOh no no, oh no noThere's only one thing I need to knowWhose side are you on

And you didn't even get into the whole astrology side of it yet. That part is really fun!

I think the best strategy the Republicans could have is to bring the Kos Kids out into the real world (as opposed to the blogosphere). The more people associate the Democrats with KOS and the rest of these wild-eyed leftists the better it is for the GOP. The Dems want them for their money and organizational skills, but they do not want them to be the public face of the party. They scare away sane Dems and wavering independents.

What is most amusing is how the MSM beats them up even though they are the sworn enemy of the GOP and Bush. Their disdain of bloggers is evidently stronger than their hatred of the President.

Of course Hillary's ops have people digging deep into the Kos files. Don't people remember all the "gates" from 10 years ago? Kosoids have seized control of the Democrat Party message. Democrats will lose with this message. Dean doesn't know this. He is still enthralled with the Kosoids.

Hillary knows the Democrats are doomed as long as Kos controls the message. She has the machinery in place to "get the goods". Kos should be paranoid, and it will be fun to watch!

The fact of Kos's influence is incredibly depressing. The Left, especially Marxists, once could be accused of dangerous abstraction and over-intellectualization.

Socialism and liberalism have offered, in varying degrees, humane alternatives. The elevation of working people and the creation of an ethical society which did not grind the weak and oppressed into an abyss have been the noble project of a century and a half.

But where in Kos is the intellectual content formerly associated with the Left? Where do we find anything like thoughtful analysis and debate? Where are the humane and ethical traditions of the Left on display? Where is a basic understanding of economics, even of the Marxist variety? I'd settle for old-fashioned Marxism. At least there would be some thought, however misguided, behind it.

What we get instead is obscenity-filled invective and vapid partisan rants, all presented in an atmosphere of stultifying group-think. And now we have astrology lurking around the edges.

I can't stand to read this stuff. It should be incredibly depressing for liberals that such a person and his followers have the influence they seem to on the Democratic Party.

I know I'm depressed. Does anyone know anything that would cheer me up? Maybe Hillary will save us. But a Democratic Party that could ignore such nut cases in the first place would have been better.

There's no evidence of Hillary in this yet. The original Jerome Armstrong stock touting leak to Sullentrop was from a long-time anti-touting activist, and the rest of it was just people googling, and kos acting like he does.

Kos' rhetorical style does not exactly lend itself to the mass market, and beyond that there's plenty of evidence that he's drunk the kool-aid and is full of himself.

There is a built-in trap for people like kos in the media. They come up from obscurity, and get a little media exposure and influence. It goes to their head, and they start acting like, well, kos. Then the second wave of mass market media, which points out, truthfully, that they're insane. It's a built-in siren song.

The jostling and name-calling are indeed evidence that part of the left wants Kos out of the group. What I really don't understand is that their messages are exactly the same, they're merely arguing about the best format for delivery .

Hillary wants to do the old "talk centrist, then go left" move. Kos is all 60s radical, "Screw that. What do want we want? No GWOT, national health care, and Bush is jail! When do we want it? Now!

It's not the message they're debating, but the delivery. And if claiming Kos is a loon works, it's fine to them. Ed Muskie and Thomas Eagleton suffered from earlier versions of this attack. Perot battled the same charge, though he fought hard against it. Not surprisingly, the tactic was a favorite of the Soviets, as well.

It's amazing how effective the crazy meme works to disparage and isolate one's opponents. The left should be very careful where they point that thing, however, as voters might be tempted to think that the entire left has gone to crazy town, and they're not interested in promoting its mayor to higher office.

I buy on to the idea that this just happened. Yes, I think that both Hillary Clinton and Karl Rove are capable of this, but I will also submit that the timing is wrong for both of them. Rove knows that whatever happens in late June is irrelevant to elections - which is why we get Labor Day Surprises (like RatherGate). Hillary would probably do best if this happened in about a year and a half, leaving the lunatic fringe of her party in disarray as she coasts into the nomination.

Looks to me like the LLL dems are on a crusade. First they jettison Kos, then they go after Michael Moore and the Howard Deane supporters and then finally Deane. This is how they will try to get rid of their crazies. The policies will still be the ones the crazies supported but they will point to the fact that there are no crazies there. Forget the policies, look at the people who look sane. Disregard what they say, look at how they speak. You can even take them into polite society if you ignore what they really want.

On the other hand, maybe it's easy to make Kos look belligerent and paranoid because he's belligerent and paranoid. This is the man who had a "plan to destroy the DLC", remember? And of course he accuses The new Republic of being in on it with Lieberman, because he's currently running a campaign against Lieberman. All his enemies are of course in on anything bad that happens to him.

But this is what happens whenever the left gets a tiny sniff of power. They're alright as long as they're wielding their influence in their tiny little ponds, a bitter, draft-dodging high school prinicpal here, a tenured professor there, a city councilperson somewhere else. But put them in a position of broad public visibility, a Dean, a Kerry, a Kos, and the wheels come off, every time, when the general public has to reconcile what they've been told/sold about these hollow men and hustlers with what they're actually seeing.

One way to see this is as the Traditional Media (TNR, Newsweek, and The NYTimes) vs. the bloggers that strike the most fear into their writers and their CFOs.

Parallel to that is the "coincidence" that TNR is rabidly pro-Lieberman, Newsweek's most liberal writer is self-described liberal Joe Klein who makes his nut bashing Democrats.

And of course, let's not forget that TNR and Newsweek's columnists led us face first into the Iraq War and have pretty much been proven wrong (along with you) at every turn. And who was right this entire time? Kos and Atrios and Josh Marshall and all of those horrid left wing bloggers.

In the meantime, never able to place common sense and logic over a good kicking of the left, tighty righties such as Ann Althouse, Glenn Reynolds, Jeff Goldstein, and David Brooks pile on.

And yet, the central charge, that Kos has some sort of pay to play Kosola for endorsements on Kos has never been met with a single shred of evidence.

Ewwww--it's scary when I find myself agreeing with something Quxxo said; to wit: there doesnt appear to be any evidence that there is some sort of endorsements for cash scheme--At best, brother Jason appears to have run afoul of the SEC several years back.

What appears to have taken center stage, however, is not allegations of kosola, but the (at least to me) over the top response to the story by Kos, the use of the left blogosphere via "Townhouse," and the response of that particular circle of the left-blogosphere.

They come up from obscurity, and get a little media exposure and influence. It goes to their head, and they start acting like, well, kos. Then the second wave of mass market media, which points out, truthfully, that they're insane.

The money angle on the Kosola argument never materialized. A much better explanation is that Kos is strongly influenced by his circle of intimates, to the extent that candidates can exploit the connection by hiring one of the intimates, such as Armstrong. The original arguments of payola by Dean were never of straight payola, remember. Dean officials believed that by hiring Armstrong and Kos they would get the pair to talk them up favorably.

If you buy this semi-exonerating explanation, Kos's real problem is that he doesn't have a buffer between his business operations and his political operations, leaving him open to exploitation. For a normal member of the media, having a relationship with a political consultant as strong and long-lasting as Kos's with Armstrong would be a big no-no, for exactly those reasons.

The real scandal, I think, is the existence of the Townhouse list and the evident expectation that Kos could control coverage of the story just by asking. Is this a reasonable expectation on the part of Kos? Has it been done before? Is there an expectation that Kos would return the favor on some future story? What are the extent of the favors that it's permissable to ask for on this list? For that matter, are Armstrong and other political consultants allowed on the list? Are the same courtesies extended to them?

It strikes me that Armstrong could be selling his access to Kos even if Kos never receives a dime.

But where in Kos is the intellectual content formerly associated with the Left? Where do we find anything like thoughtful analysis and debate?

From the preface to "Crashing The Gate":

"In May 2005 we began traveling all over the country to interview politifcal insiders and outsiders--journalists, politicians, consultants, historians, authors, and activists. We traveled to over twenty states and interviewed over 150 people. We had an early thesis--that the Democratic Party's biggest problem was "branding," or rather the lack of it. However, that thesis was decimated by the research and interviews during our travels. (Suffice it to say,the party has bigger problems than branding or marketing.) We wanted to write a book with intellectual heft, but we are neither historians nor political scientists. Our underqualified efforts to write heavy political and historical material failed miserably. [Emphasis added.]

(They then go on to write about starting over from scratch, based on an inspiration about the identity of their new movement.)

Theo: Now, regarding the part of your comment that I excerpted, I don't think intellectual content is the goal.

It's easy to make people look crazy who act crazy and say crazy things, like Dean and Kos. Then you just need publicize their acts and words, they have done the work for you. The ever insightful Pogo nailed it: the mainstream Dems don't disavow the message, only the messenger.

It does seem that the story is how to goad Kos into showing his drawers in public. TNR's original story lacks much real heft, and it seeks to conflate the Kos email with the SEC issues for Armstrong, in a weak, general stab at some imagined seaminess. And if the accusation that Zengerle published a fraudulent email as part of the story, then he has some questions to answer about his reliance on unnamed "sources." Either he was used, or he didn't care to verify the email's veracity by speaking with its purported sender before publishing. Sloppy at best, but representative of his reporting on this so far. There hasn't been any evidence so far of payola, and I continue to be disappointed at how mainstream journalism deals with bloggers.

Ann, add to your excellent list of mysteries, "why does Althouse suddenly write of Althouse in the third person"? Is she echoing the Kos tone of madness? Is she just having a bit of fun early in the a.m.?

Personally, being on the right, I plan to enjoy this little meltdown, even though I think it will pass soon enough. It may be cruel, but right now I don't care, because when are the Kossacks really fair to anyone they disagree with?

But all of the problems Kos has with people who ought to be, at least in part, ideological compatriots are caused by Kos himself. He doesn't have to be so belligerent and self-dramatizing, but he is. People on his side of the aisle are already primed to attacke because they or someone they associate themselves with have already been attacked by Kos. When they pay attention to what Kos says and find little of substance, when they look at what he does and see a hint of hypocracy, when they look at his success-rate and find it wanting, they are already primed to criticize. It's his own fault that his arguments are not as reasoned as they are aggressive.

The more people associate the Democrats with KOS and the rest of these wild-eyed leftists

The MSM was at Yearly Kos and were most surprised to find just the opposite.

And as far as 'intellectual heft' is concerned, Thou shall not steal, Thou shall not bear false witness against thy neighbor, Thou shall not covet thy neighbor's goods and Thou shall not murder would seem to be so easy, they could be called elementary school philosophies, yet they remain beyond Bush's heft.

Philosophical ideologies do not have to be so pronounced as, say, the neoconjob one foisted on the country when Remedial Morality will suffice.

The MSM was at Yearly Kos and were most surprised to find just the opposite.

Found he opposite of what? Most of the MSM stories I read were not glowing reviews. About the only thing I saw that surprised the MSM was that many of the KOS Kids are not kids, but middle-aged leftover's from the 60s.

Exactly, but that's the problem, isn't it? Call me old-fashioned, but I prefer a little content in my political discourse. Tell me why I should vote the way you want me to vote. Lay out the reasons you think a political party should adopt the positions you seem to advocate. Tell me how they will work in practice and what benefit they will have for me and for the country. Yes, and spice it up with some good ol' arm-waving and podium-thumping, and don't forget to say bad things about the opposition.

Trouble is, all Kos seems to do is the electronic equivalent of arm-waving, podium thumping, and saying bad things. Very bad things. Obscenities that properly belong on Richard Nixon's tapes are regularly resurrected for what purpose I cannot say. There seems to be a kind of aggressive, in-group mindset that substitutes snarky code-phrases for argument and assumes things as facts that are far from demonstrated. Of course, none of this is new. See Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language.”

Kos's rhetoric and style leave me completely unpersuaded. The 20-something Santa Monica slackers that seem to be his core demographic may be his source of power and riches. A thousand of them may show up at the Riviera Hotel. They may even vote ocassionally. All I can tell you and anyone connected with the Democratic Party is that I vote. Every time. My wife does, too. We're Democrats--or at least we were. And we sure as Hell won't vote for anyone blessed by this lunatic and his followers.

"And as far as 'intellectual heft' is concerned, Thou shall not steal, Thou shall not bear false witness against thy neighbor, Thou shall not covet thy neighbor's goods and Thou shall not murder would seem to be so easy, they could be called elementary school philosophies, yet they remain beyond Bush's heft."

The only thing creepier than a right winger quoting biblical passages as an explanation of their political philosophy is when a lefty does it. Does your "remedial morality" include the parts about putting homosexuals to death and shunning people who wear mildewed clothes and prohibitions against eating lobsters?

There's no conspiracy. Kos' style causes people to dislike him, and when he trips up, as he did with the omerta email, there are many people who are happy to give him a little shove without any propmpting or prior coordination. I can't feel very sorry for kos about this. He's been playing the role of a bully-boy for some time, and he's due to have some sand kicked back in his face.

The original Sulletrop/Armstrong SEC payola article was tipped by a long-time anti-touting activist. That prompted kos to send the email to Townhouse, and there were multiple leaks from there to TNR. So the conspiracy would require multiple agents on the townhouse list, along with TNR, Kaus, and Bob Wright. And of course the right-blogosphere got in some licks, too, with the astrology stuff.

I suspect he'll be Sister Souljah'd by some moderate democrat before the presidential election, but that time hasn't come yet.

Reps aren't going after Kos. As Gingrich noted, why on earth should they? He's a loser, he backs losers, his followers are losers (hi, "Jacque Cuse), they just lose, over and over again. Few things could be better for Republicans in the short term than for Kos and his Children of the Corn to ascend into power within the Democratic Party.

But the MSM isn't as dopey as Kos' typical camp follower. They surely hate Bush as much as Kos and his Children of the Corn do, and their animus for a strong America with an aggressive national security posture toward its enemies surely matches Kos and his Children of the Corn, but they know that pansy *ss cut and run sh*t won't sell with the electorate. So they've got to take down Kos before he and his Children of the Corn drive the Democrat Party into distinct minority status for the duration of the GWOT.

Think about it: Rove escapes indictment; melts down truth out and Leopold; calls General Casey in Iraq--tells him to launch the f16s and thaw out the Z-man for a photo op; gets the Iraqi government to complete its cabinet; flys the President over; plants the Kosola story and no one is the wiser. Good thing Rove had the goods on Fitz and coerced him into dropping the indictment.

Sarcasm off (although I am surprised the lefty moonbats havent come up with that scenario).

Does your "remedial morality" include the parts about putting homosexuals to death and shunning people who wear mildewed clothes and prohibitions against eating lobsters?

No. Nor does it include the dietary restrictions for the Jews.

I didn't realize that's what the neocons (or Kossacks) have advocated. I know that Bush continually has said his directions come from the Christian God, however.

My response confines itself to the specific list God delivered to Moses with orders for people to follow them. The only amendment since was when Christ indicated that they could be condensed to putting no other God before God, and loving thy neighbor as thyself, because the latter naturally would preclude ddisobeying the specific commandments cited.

I'm also repulsed by the notion that liberals or Democrats can't be Christians, when the facts quite clearly indicate otherwise.

As for the comment that "many of the KOS Kids are not kids, but middle-aged leftover's from the 60s", that's a mathematical probability I can't contest the logic of. I didn't see the MSM conduct a poll to see what their political views were back then, so that's hardly relevant.

And btw, many of us have our disagreements with some of Kos' positions and strategies. But we're also capable of judging the difference between reasonable critiques - which I've made myself - and those that utilize anonymous sourcing that the alleged author of an email is disputing.

My impression is that Kos is good at promoting the visibility and name recognition of candidates. And I presume that's why he gets hired, not because of his command of policy minutaie, which generally comes from candidates and their inner circles of policy advisors.

You're on to something. My point has been that it is hard to know WHAT Kos stands for, exactly, through all the nonsense he spins. I indeed read Kos when I can stand it, but never late at night or on a full stomach.

Kos, to my mind, is NOT truly on the Left side of things. He's on the Kos side of things, and as such is a baleful influence. And, yes, he is very good at promoting name recognition among those who can tolerate him. He is also very good at promoting name recognition among those who will vote against any candidate he backs.

When the first surgical operation was performed under anesthetic at Massachusetts General Hospital in 1846, the attending physician, Dr. Warren, declared, "Gentlemen, this is no humbug." Well, Kos has developed a political anesthetic that relieves his followers of the pain of thought. Given this achievement, we might declare, "Gentlemen, this is ALL humbug."

It's rough times in Kosville when folks like downtownlad reject his association. Of course, Kos has, like Dean, been part of the angry Left for years now, so jettisoning him might mean a shift to the center-left, or an attempt to appear so.

Moreover, I agree that this is also a NYTimes marketing strategy: They think the best way to shore up their eroding balance sheet is to show that the US won't have an effective anti-conservative and anti-military voice without it. Hence the anti-jihad leaks and the attacks on Kos.

Ann, yes, I'm familiar with literary devices. I was amused by the shift in voice, and wondered what was going through your mind at the time. I thought maybe you were using it to gently mock Kos' dilemmma. I'm baffled that my asking about it seems to have irritated you.

Roger A — You don't see at least a potential problem with Jason, who is still under a permanent ban from stock trading by the SEC, being involved and soliciting and supposedly distributing political contributions over the internet?

I quoted from Kos/Armstrong's book because what you wrote brought that passage to my mind. It wasn't questioning your position, it was an insight into them.

All I can tell you and anyone connected with the Democratic Party is that I vote ...

While I'm a registered (and regular) voter, I'm not a registered Democrat ... or Republican. Now, because it's an option in Iowa, I'm registered as "no party"; when I lived in Delaware, I was registered as an Independent.

You and I agree about the discussion and content of things. I'm sorry if my original comment seemed to mislead you.

(Maybe it's because I'm reading Kos/Armstrong's book? Well, trust me, I'm reading a number of books, and they sort of encompass the spectrum. It's an eccentricity of mine.)

Thanks for more thoughts. I appreciate your quotes from the book, which really helped make my point: Kos is no Walter Lippmann. Unfortunatelly, he doesn't seem to be much of a Karl Rove, either. And he drives me and a lot of other people crazy. In any event, I was just taking off from your point about the lack of any intellectual intent on his part, and I don't want to give the impression that I disagree or misunderstand in any way. I really appreciate the interesting discussion here, and I think it's the essence of good commenting to be able to riff from and extend each others' remarks.

BTW, I am a registered Republican. I changed my registration a few years ago to vote in an interesting primary, and haven't bothered to undo the damage. Otherwise, I am a "cultural Democrat"--Catholic, working-class background, half Irish, etc. It pains me beyond belief to have to pull the Republican lever occasionally, but unless the Democrats give up the likes of Kos, I'll continue to click around the dreaded "R" columns on the machine, at least in Federal elections.

It's rough times in Kosville when folks like downtownlad reject his association.

Um - when did I reject his association? Honestly - I never even knew I had an association with him in the first place, that was there to reject.

I disagree with dailykos about 90% of the time, but I find his site entertaining and interesting. I think he's quite passionate in his opinions, which are decidedly anti-war. That's his prerogative, and it's shared by almost half of this country. What is the big deal.

I read all sorts of blogs, but tend to trend towards the libertarian, centrist ones - sites that actually tolerate some debate, i.e. Althouse, Kipesquire, Jon Rowe, etc. But when I want to see what the left thinks - I go to Kos and Atrios. When I want to see what the right thinks I go to the Corner.

If you don't like Kos - then don't read him. People need to get a life instead of obsessing over the fact that there are Americans who do not support the Bush agenda and enjoy reading a site like Kos.

The right fails to comprehend that people can legitimately hold leftist views, without being evil.

Apparently, before he got into politics, Jerome Armstrong was an astrologer by trade. E.g., [ref 1],[ref 2]

In today's update, Zengerle admits an error:

"Steve Gilliard claims that he did not write the email I attributed to him in this post. After doing some further investigating, I'm afraid to say that he is correct. He did not write that email. I apologize to Gilliard for not checking with him before publishing my post, and I regret the error."

but argues:

"the mistake that resulted from this failure has allowed Greenwald and others to try to use this minor error to distract people from much larger issues. Those issues are: Armstrong's troubles with the SEC; Armstrong's relationship with Moulitsas and Moulitsas's pattern of supporting politicians who hire Armstrong as a consultant; Moulitsas's attempts to silence liberal bloggers from commenting on these matters; the seeming acquiescence of so many of these liberal bloggers (including Greenwald) to Moulitsas's demands; and now, strangely, stuff like this."

Hi Richard--admittedly there is a potential problem but there does seem to me to be more smoke than fire--I am much more interested in some of the theories floating around that that this is lefty MSM plot to torpedo the progressive blogosphere! :)